It is certainly a big deal when designing print pieces, as that’ll make a big difference in how it looks.  On the web, though, all that matters is pixels.  It’s often said that web images should be 72 ppi, but that doesn’t matter.  72 ppi is fine, but certainly not required.

As an example, here are four images that are each 300×300 pixels in size, but with varying levels of ppi:

72 ppi, 19.7KB	300 ppi, 19.7KB
1 ppi, 19.7KB	10,000 ppi, 19.7KB

On the web, it clearly doesn’t matter.  However, you’ll want to keep those high-resolution (and high ppi) files for printing in a separate location.  If I ever scale an image down for the web, I make sure to keep an original high-resolution copy of the image safe somewhere.

Another consideration are the new HD/Retina displays coming out, that show images in a sharper resolution than they’re shown on the screen.  This still has nothing to do with ppi.  As explained by mobify:

So if you want to create an HD image at 200 x 200 on a Retina display, create the image at 400 x 400 then use CSS to control the HD image down to 200 x 200: img { width:200px; height:200px; }.

So there you go. Use any ppi you want, just make sure your images are sized correctly!

The post DPI/PPI doesn’t matter at all on the web appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

I’m using Blumind to do this, primarily because it has a “portable” version that I can install in Dropbox and keep things synced across computers.  It works quite well.

As our client base at Green Mellen has grown, we’ve often asked “do you remember how xx person found us?” and have to dig through emails to recall the trail.  I thought it’d be neat to map them all out, and Blumind has been great for that.  I simply add clients as sub-topics to the client that referred them to us and the tree slowly branches out.  Below is a look at a large chunk of it (not all clients are in there yet), with the names blacked out for privacy reasons.

As you can see, there are two clients in the upper left portion that have sent us a ton of referrals.  From a business perspective we work hard to stay fresh in their minds and keep them happy, and from a personal perspective we often thank them for what they’ve done and work hard to send appropriate referrals back in their direction when possible.

This has been a fun little tool to use.  It’s neat to be able to see where your clients are coming from.  In our case, it’s humbling to realize just how many are coming from word-of-mouth; it shows that clients are very happy with the work we’ve done, but it also helps to keep us working extra hard to make sure everyone is satisfied with the results the’re getting.

Have you ever built a visualization of your client list before? How did it work out for you?

The post Mapping out your client list appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

WordPress SEO

[ Get the WordPress SEO plugin here] Joost de Valk (also known as “Yoast”) is a highly respected WordPress developer, and this package includes quite a few great tools to help with the search engine optimization of your site.  I had previously used a handful of plug-ins (mostly from Joost) to accomplish my goals, but this package is now more functional than those individual pieces.

• Canonical URL’s — To make sure Google knows the true URL of each page.
• Google XML Sitemaps — To create (and submit) sitemaps of your posts/pages.
• Robots Meta — To include robot meta tags in certain areas of the site to prevent duplicate content issues.
• RSS Footer — To add a snippet of text (and a link) at the bottom of your RSS feeds to help take advantage of people that scrape your feeds.

This is an excellent plug-in, and he updates it regularly with new features.  The one piece that this doesn’t replace is PuSHPress, which enables PubSubHubbub support to your site.  In short, it makes new entries go out really fast to people that get your posts using Google Reader and similar tools.

Jetpack

[ Get the Jetpack plugin here ] Similar to WordPress SEO, this plug-in replaces a variety of plugins that I’ve been using over the years.

• Subscribe to comments — I hate it when I comment on a blog but they give me no way to subscribe to email updates of subsequent comments on that particular post.  This takes care of that.
• Various social plugins — I’ve used a variety of social plugins (Digg Digg, ShareThis, Sociable, various individual networks, etc), but this takes care of them all in one place.  However, it doesn’t yet handle Pinterest so if you want that you’ll still need to add it separately.
• WordPress Stats — If you like the WordPress stats plug-in, you now need to use Jetpack to stay current on it.  This offers nice lightweight stats, though I also include Google Analytics on every site.
• Contact forms — This replaces other contact form scripts (Contact Form 7, etc), though I still use Wufoo most of the time.

Other plugins

So those two plug-ins have replaced many of the ones I used to use, but I still have a decent collection that are also installed for most clients.  They include:

• Akismet – An excellent anti-spam plugin, which comes standard with WordPress, though you need to activate it.
• Disqus Comment System — A replacement for the built-in comment system (and replaces the need for Akismet, Highlight Author Comments and some of the features in Jetpack).  I use it on a few sites, but not too many yet.
• FeedBurner FeedSmith — If you push your RSS feed out via FeedBurner, this a great plug-in to help direct people to the proper feed.
• Highlight Author Comments — This allows you to style author comments a bit differently then normal comments, so they’ll stand out when the post author leaves a comment on the post.
• InfiniteWP Client — I manage most of my WordPress sites using Infinite WP, and this is a required piece of that.
• jQuery Lightbox for Native Galleries — This turns normal WP galleries into cool lightboxed galleries. Here is an example.
• PuSHPress — As I mentioned above, this enabled PubSubHubbub support on your blog, which means it goes out to RSS readers really fast.
• Shadowbox JS — Allows you to do some neat shadowbox trick with media on your site, like popping YouTube videos up in little boxes.
• Widget Logic — Allows you to pick and choose which pages particular widgets should appear on.
• WPtouch — Creates a mobile-friendly version of your site automatically.  While I prefer to use mobile responsive themes instead of this, it can be helpful for older blogs.

There are a few others that I use from time to time depending on the theme (various sliders, theme-specific plug-ins such as Genesis Simple Edits when working with a StudioPress theme, etc), but that’s my main list.

 What are your favorite WordPress plug-ins?

The post Consolidating plug-ins with Jetpack and WordPress SEO appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

The biggest problem with special mobile versions of sites is determining when it should be used.  On a 3.7″ iPhone?  Sure.  How about a 4.6″ phone?  How about a 7″ tablet?  10″ tablet?  It gets quite messy.  Responsive sites will show as much information as they can reasonably fit on the screen, no matter what kind of device you are using.

Here’s a quick look at how it works (via a brighter web):

While converting an existing site to become responsive can be a significant challenge, it’s remarkably easy to build a new site that is responsive from day one — especially if you use WordPress.  I use StudioPress for many of the sites I build, and they’re rolling out more and more responsive themes as time goes on.  They already have 11 different responsive themes, including the one that this blog is using (“Focus“).  Simply install the theme, add your content, and it’ll automatically take care of optimizing the display of the site for every visitor.

You might also find that it increases your traffic.  Rob Cubbon recently shared some stats from his blog after making the switch to a responsive theme, and the increase was quite impressive.  I just switched the theme on this blog here yesterday, so it’ll be a little while before I can measure any kind of difference.  I’ll be sure to post again if I see similar results to Rob.

Another good resource for learning about responsive design comes to use from ReadWriteWeb, which has a great article about the process that the Boston Globe went through to make their site responsive.

Is your site responsive yet?  Do you plan to convert it over in the near future? Or do you think reponsiveness is simply a fad that will go away in a few years?

The post Making your website “mobile responsive” appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

When I run into others that are in my field, it’s typically a great thing.  The entire crowd at any given WordPress Meetup could be considered “competition” to one another (we’re all web developers trying to make a living), but it doesn’t feel that way at all.  We share knowledge and ideas, and help people solve their problems.  It’s wonderful.

I’ve found the same to be true of other meetings; when I meet fellow web developers we typically exchange info and keep up with each other.  Building that kind of community around your business can be very helpful and rewarding.

Yesterday was weird, though.  I went to the Marietta Business Association for the first time, as I’ve heard it’s a good group (and it is).  Before lunch I was hanging out talking to folks and was chatting with a guy that works for an I.T./web company.  As soon as he found out what I did, he said “Oh, that’s pretty much what we do too” and was clearly done.  In other words “I can’t sell you my stuff, so I’m wasting my time“.  It was quite surprising, and more than a little bit rude.  We swapped business cards and he took off.

After the meeting, I went home and emailed the folks that I met to say thanks for their time.  For example, one woman owns a catering company and will be providing lunch at the meeting next month, so I simply said that it was nice to meet her and I was looking forward to a great lunch next month.  Since I typically email everyone I get cards from, I emailed the I.T./web guy as well — something like “nice to meet you, if I have a client with IT needs I’ll certainly keep you in mind”.

I guess that was enough to jumpstart him, so he sent back a lengthy response telling me exactly what kind of client he’s looking for, all of the things they can do, how great they are, etc.  He’s clearly a sales guy, and maybe that kind of technique works, but seemed awfully pushy to me.  I much prefer working with folks, learning from them, and knowing what their strengths and weaknesses are.  In the case of this guy, all I know is that he’s a rude, pushy salesman that does I.T.  I won’t be sending anyone his direction.

On the other hand, here are some great people in the Atlanta area that I’ve met over the past few months that might be valuable to some of you:

• If you need basic WordPress training, Kathy Drewien is very knowledgeable and patient.
• If you need SEO or copywriting help, Jenny Munn can get it done.
• If you send out email newsletters, Patrick Carver has a sweet solution being developed.
• If you need web hosting, Carel Bekker’s company is top-notch and very affordable.
• If you need I.T. support, Derrick Eisenhardt is a great guy to use.

The list goes on and on.  While I’m sure it doesn’t work this way in every industry, I’ve found it invaluable to connect with these people and many others like them, and I’m looking forward to meeting plenty more in the near future.  If you’re in the Atlanta area and you’re into WordPress, come check out Kathy’s meetup, Marna’s meetup, or a new one that I’m starting in a few weeks.

If WordPress isn’t your thing (or you’re not in the area), look for a Meetup or other group near you and start connecting with like-minded folks today!

The post Your competition isn’t (necessarily) the enemy appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

More and more, the ROI of social media is simply that your business will continue to exist.  For example, if I asked you for the ROI on your business phone, your response would likely be “Who knows, but we obviously need to have a phone!”.  And you’re right!  The same goes for social tools; customers fully expect you to have a presence on social networks to help them find answers to their questions and hopefully to encourage them to come in for a visit.

Below are three example of businesses near me that have closed in the past year, and I feel that a lack of social media presence contributed to the demise of each of them.  A bad business will go under no matter how well they tweet, so perhaps these companies were doomed anyhow.  However, I think a bit of effort in the social world would have helped all three tremendously.

Bellacino’s

I loved Bellacino’s.  They featured “grinders” and pizza, and it was quite tasty.  They’d put coupons in some of those coupon packs that you get in the mail, but that was about as far as they went.  Their lack of social media simply meant that they were rarely in the front of our mind.  I had no real desire to “connect” with them necessarily, but if their coupons had been on Facebook I would have gladly hooked up with them on there.  If I had done so, perhaps they would have appeared in my feed from time and time and we probably would have gone in more often.

They went out of business around a year ago.

Stadium Bar & Grill

Stadium was simply made for social media, and they simply ignored it.  The restaurant did all kinds of fun activities, like trivia night and local music, but did a pitiful job of presenting it online.  For about 18 months their Facebook page had a total of one update that said something like “check back often for special events and coupons!”.  Great idea, but no execution.  They eventually started updating more often, but hadn’t built up a fan base of any kind and didn’t have enough time to build a presence.

I emailed a few of the owners to offer to help them out (for free, even), and never got a response.  They went out of business last month.

Rita’s Italian Ice

Rita’s was a place that served frozen ice, kind of like slushies.  It was really good!  Every day they’d have a different selection of flavors, which meant it was a perfect opportunity for social media.  Before I’d run out there to get treats for the family, my girls would always ask what flavors they had today.  Because of their lack of Facebook and Twitter updates, I’d have to call.  It was painful.  The poor girl answering the phone was typically trying to help a customer in the store at the time, while she’d be reading me a list of flavors that I’d be frantically writing down.  It was stupid.

With them, not only did I offer to help but I even took the time to set up a Twitter account for them, brand it, and show them how to use it.  Rather than updating daily with the flavors, they’d update it maybe once a month.  Useless.  I got tired of calling, so the only time we’d go is if the whole family was out together so that everyone could pick their own flavor.

They went out of business six months ago.

How do you do it right?

Menchie’s Frozen Yogurt

It’s not all bad news, though.  We have a local frozen yogurt shop called Menchie’s that is simply amazing on Facebook.  They’re just a little store in a strip mall and they have over 1200 fans on Facebook!  If you look at their page you’ll see why — tons of updates, coupons, interaction with every user, and just a great job of connecting with their customers.

It’s not rocket science; in fact, it’s quite simple.  The issue is that it takes time to do it right, and you need to commit to it.  I have no idea who runs the Menchie’s page (the owner, perhaps?), but they put the time into it to do it right.  As a result, they’re getting more customers through the door.

It’s no guarantee

I’m certainly not saying that this is a guarantee that your business will flourish.  Those other three stores still might have gone out of business, and Menchie’s might be gone in a year.  Ultimately, you still need to provide a great product at a great price and treat people right when they come in the door.

I can promise this, though: in all four cases above, social media was a distinct factor for bringing people into the business (or failing to), which is huge.

You’ll notice that all four examples are food related, and that was intentional — social media was seemingly made for restaurants, so if you’re still wondering if “that Twitter thing might catch on”, you need to get in gear now!  If you need help getting started, just get in touch with me and I’ll be happy to help.

The post The ROI of social media is survival appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

With the help of Ali Green, we’ve put together a new site called A Brighter Web.  On the site we have over 60 video tutorials on topics such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and WordPress.  We’re adding a few new videos every day, and we’ll be expanding our range of topics over time.

With that in mind, what would you like to see on a site like that?  More social platforms, like FourSquare and LinkedIn?  Or perhaps software tutorials, like Photoshop?  Leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to see, and we’ll certainly take your ideas into consideration moving foward.

Thanks!

The post Working toward A Brighter Web appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

My social media presentation was largely focused on the fact that Twitter and Facebook are no longer tools for churches to be “playing with”; they’ve become legitimate communication tools.  While most churches are doing fairly well with Facebook, Twitter remains a problem.  I’m hoping the tools I shared with them will help get things rolling.

Google+

Even though the sessions were only a week ago, my thoughts on Google+ have changed.  At the time, I said something like “You need to focus hard on Facebook and Twitter, and start playing with Google+ because you’ll need to be active there later this year“.  As it turns out, “later this year” is now.  The reason for the sudden shift is Google’s release of “Search, plus Your World”, which adds heavy Google+ integration into the search results.  Here’s a quick video showing how that works:

That alone should be enough to encourage you to get your organization on Google+.  But it goes further.  Try searching for “music” or “cars” and you’ll get a result similar to the shot below.  Notice the area that I outlined in red.

Notice that the red box is for Google+ profiles only; no Twitter or Facebook found there.  That is seen by some as anti-competitive, and perhaps it is, but that’s simply how it works right now.  Britney Spears trails a variety of artists on Twitter (Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, etc), but none of them are on Google+ yet.  As a result, she’s suddenly getting a lot more free promotion when someone performs a search.

For now, that area doesn’t matter much for your business, but it will soon.  For local searches, Google will almost certainly start showing businesses in your area instead of just generic industry-related results.  If you wait until that happens before you join Google+, you’ll be way behind.  Suppose Katy Perry sees those results and joins Google+ to get back in the game.  While she may catch up to Spears eventually, she’s already behind by 1.3 million followers.  How far ahead do you want your competition to get before you join the game?

Faces in the main results

Not only is that side bar relevant, but the main search results (in both personal and non-personal mode) are already full of results from Google+.  In many cases, those results show the face of the author of the post even if the post was made on their own blog.  For example, the below search for “google earth imagery january” shows my face next to the second result, because it knows that I wrote that article and it connects to my Google+ profile; and this is the non-personal results!

Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket

As much as I love Google+, I’m certainly not advising you to bail on Facebook or Twitter.  As I said at the beginning, those are legit communications platforms and your organization needs to be active on both of them.  For now, at least, all three are very important to your organization.

If you want to dabble in social media, there are places to do that.  Play with Pinterest (connect with me), play with Path, or play with any of the other new services popping up.  Pinterest may become more serious this year, but for now you can just poke the tires a bit.

I don’t have time

I hear it a lot — “not another service to keep up with!”, but it’s all about your mind set.  Instead of worrying about how you’ll have time for three separate services, just look at it from the positive side.  Now you have another way to connect with your customers, and this one will help you show up more frequently in the search results too.  It’s a win-win!

Once you get things set up, simply take 10-15 minutes/day to post your latest thoughts and respond to people that are talking to you.  It doesn’t have to be a huge deal.  If it takes longer than that to respond to everything coming your way, then your business is likely doing well and you can afford to spend more time working with those people (or hire someone to help you out).

Do you think any other services are worthy of the full attention of your business right now?  I can see LinkedIn being one for a few organizations, but that’s about it.  Agree?

The post It’s time to stop dabbling with social media appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

On the way to Michigan for my grandmother’s funeral, we stopped at a Country Inn & Suites, where we’ve had enjoyable visits in the past. It was really just a minor issue at the hotel, too; the tub was full of water when we arrived, and apparently had been for days, because the shower floor was really slick when you stood up in it. We didn’t complain or anything, but I mentioned it in the email survey they sent a few days later.

Their response?

Wow!  It wasn’t a big issue before, but now they made me feel pretty stupid.  Did I imagine the problem?  I replied back that I was pleased to have received a response at all, but to belittle my issue was a pretty insensitive move.  If they had simply apologized for the issue I would have been good with it, but their questioning whether or not it was even a problem was pretty weak.

Applebee’s

It reminds me of a visit my wife and I made to Applebee’s years ago when we lived in Dothan, AL.  We tried to go there one night for dinner, but the place was full of smoke.  It was awful.  We emailed them to let them know about it.  A few days later, a manager called.  Which of the following did he say?

A – Sorry about that, one of our waitresses just had a baby and we all lit up cigars to celebrate.
B – Sorry about that, our ventilation system was having issues and the air in the smoking section wasn’t getting refreshed properly.
C – No it wasn’t.

It wasn’t a long phone call, but he insisted repeatedly that it wasn’t smoky in there.  Period.  Very odd.  Had he apologized and explained the situation, perhaps we would have tried going there again in the future.  With his actual response, we never went in the doors again.

You’re a human, and that’s ok

Your business is run by humans.  We know that.  When mistakes occur, which will certainly happen, how will you respond?  Will you respond like Chrylser did when a bad Tweet went out, and fire everyone in sight?  Or respond like the Red Cross did when a similar bad tweet went out, by apologizing and turning it into a win-win for everyone?

MythBusters

Another good example of a solid apology is with the MythBusters cannonball incident.  If you haven’t seen it yet, the MythBusters had a cannonball go way off course, through a neighborhood, through a house (!), across a six-lane road, and then end up inside of a minivan.  It was very fortunate that no one was hurt.

How did they respond to it?  The hosts of the show, Jamie and Adam, went to the neighborhood and held a brief press conference.  No lawyers making sure they said the “right thing”, just them giving a sincere statement.  Then they met the homeowners to see the damage, and will be paying to repair all of the damage (include hotel stays, if necessary).  In addition, they’ve vowed to investigate to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again.  It’s exactly how they should handle it, but so many companies don’t.

When you’ve witnessed a company making a mistake, how did they handle it for you?

The post Your business isn’t perfect, but that’s ok appeared first on Mickey Mellen.

Watching it inspired me to pick up Gary’s latest book, “The Thank You Economy“.  Awesome book, highly recommended. The folks at Marlow’s Tavern really need to read it.

As a general rule, we enjoy Marlow’s.  They have a few locations near us, good food, and solid service.  Tonight we took our babysitter out there for her birthday, but the evening had a few minor issues, and I think they could really benefit from having more of a “Thank You” approach to business.

No birthday desserts

We made sure to mention that today was our babysitter’s birthday, because we knew that Marlow’s did the little free cupcake dessert like most restaurants.  Nope, not anymore.  ”Some people lie about it being their birthday, so we can’t do that anymore.”  Uh-oh.  Really?  Did that surprise them?  Of course some people will lie about it — that’s why you give them a cheap cupcake and not a free steak. We had three adults and two kids, with a total bill of $78, and they’re concerned that they might give away a $3 dessert that isn’t legit?

While you certainly need to watch out for people taking advantage of you, this just seemed really shallow.  Companies that do customer service the right away (like Zappos) just focus on treating their customers like rock stars, and don’t worry so much about potentially giving up $3 every now and then.

My food was SLOW

It was remarkable.  The other four people in our party got their food fairly quickly, but I didn’t.  So I waited.  And waited.  And waited.  We’re guessing it was 10-12 minutes before my food arrived, which is crazy for a place like that, but things happen.  However, I still don’t know what happened.  I got a quick “sorry ’bout that” when they brought it, and that was it.  It was clear they didn’t care about the issue a single bit. A much better approach would have been like what Scott Stratten had happen at a hotel a few years ago; he had a very bad breakfast, but they apologized and explained the problem and he was much happier as a result.  Here’s his full write-up of that experience.

I decided not to press the the issue with them, just to see how they’d handle it.  Simply put, they didn’t.  No apology from anyone, no deduction on our bill.

(Speaking of the bill – $2.50 each for kid’s drinks?  Wow!)

Twitter

With those in mind, I did a little digging when I got home.  They’re pretty solid on Twitter (@MarlowsTavern), so I poked around for a while.  The content they push out is solid, but their conversation skills are weak.  They reply to some comments, but it appears to be at random.  Just in the past week:

• Jennifer asked whether a dish at Marlow’s was gluten free.  A few days later, she got a reply from them — yes!  Excellent.  So she replied back asking if they had a gluten free menu, or how they should request gluten free products.  Crickets…
• Robbie tweeted that he was taking his wife to Marlow’s for her birthday.  A quick “congrats” would have been nice, but they simply let it go without comment…
• Another user tweeted to rave about their Sunday buffet.  Again, no reply.

Seriously, businesses need to build true fans to be successful and here are people actively telling their world about your restaurant — and you ignore them?

Google Place Pages

How about their Google Place pages?  They have a handful of locations, so I just checked out a few of them.  I found these two gems rather quickly:

• “The salmon was tasty, but I won’t be returning“
• “Probably one of the worst meals I have ever had“

The response from Marlow’s, as expected, was silence.

Google+

Needless to say, they’re not on Google+ yet.  Not that I can really fault them for that (it’s new, smaller than Facebook/Twitter, etc), but people are already talking about them on there…

Website

Since they’ll probably be reading this, I’ll toss in a few suggested website tweaks as a bonus.  Their website is really pretty solid (many restaurants have dreadfully awful sites), but it could use some adjustments:

• On your front page, you have a link to your “to-go” menu.  Seems like people might often be in the car when they call for that.  And the menu is a PDF?
• In the footer, “copyright 2007″.
• Also in the footer is the “designed by” garbage.  Don’t leave that on there.
• Your canonicalization is a bit messed up.
• “Follow us on Facebook”.  Don’t you “follow” people on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  People get confused enough, so don’t switch them up for no good reason.  I’ve never liked the words “follow us” anyhow, because it implies that “you should follow us and we’ll send you a bunch of crap”.  I’m glad the Twitter widget (which you have on your site) says “Join the conversation” instead, as that sounds much better.
• Your Entertainment page encourages people to visit you on MySpace, which you haven’t updated in about two years.  Can’t blame you for the lack of updates, but you should probably remove that link.

It just takes time

Social media can be difficult for some businesses.  If you sell toilet plungers, it’ll take some work to come up with a creative campaign.  For restaurants, though, it’s dead simple.  Just put in the effort, connect with your patrons, and prove that you really care about them.  I should also mention that their Facebook pages (like this one) seem to be managed quite well, so they’re not totally ignoring everyone.

At the end of the day, these weren’t killer problems for Marlow’s.  We certainly think less of them, no doubt, but we’ll be back eventually — they’ll just be a little bit lower on the list.

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